The Beatles were an English pop and rock group from Liverpool whose members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music.
In the United Kingdom, The Beatles released more than 40 different singles, albums, and EPs that reached number one. This commercial success was repeated in many other countries: their record company, EMI, estimated that by 1985 they had sold over one billion discs and tapes worldwide. The Beatles are the best-selling musical act of all time in the United States, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked The Beatles #1 on its list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. According to that same magazine, their innovative music and cultural impact helped define the 1960s, and their influence on pop culture is still evident today.
The Beatles led the mid-1960s musical "British Invasion" into the United States. Although their initial musical style was rooted in 1950s rock and roll and homegrown skiffle, the group explored genres ranging from Tin Pan Alley to psychedelic rock. Their clothes, styles, and statements made them trend-setters, while their growing social awareness saw their influence extend into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s.
1957–60: The Early Years of the Beatles
In March 1957, while attending Quarry Bank Grammar School in Liverpool, John Lennon formed a group called The Quarrymen. Lennon and the Quarrymen met guitarist Paul McCartney at the Woolton Garden Fête held at St. Peter's Church on 6 July 1957 and added him to the group a few days later. On 6 February 1958, the young guitarist George Harrison was invited to watch the group at Wilson Hall, Garston, Liverpool. McCartney had become acquainted with Harrison on the morning school bus ride to the Liverpool Institute, as they both lived in Speke. At McCartney's insistence, Harrison joined the Quarrymen as lead guitarist, after a rehearsal in March 1958, overcoming Lennon's initial reluctance because of Harrison's young age. Lennon and McCartney both played rhythm guitar during that period, and had a high turnover of drummers.
The Quarrymen went through a progression of names — "Johnny and the Moondogs", and "Long John and the Beatles". Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe joined on bass in January 1960, when they were called "The Silver Beetles" (derived from Larry Parnes' suggestion of "Long John and the Silver Beetles") — before settling on "The Beatles" in August 1960. Sutcliffe suggested 'The Beetles' as a tribute to Buddy Holly and The Crickets, which he and Lennon then thought of changing to 'The Beatals'. They changed their name again to the 'Silver Beats', The Silver Beetles, and the 'Silver Beatles', but Lennon shortened it to The Beatles, to avoid being introduced as "Long John Silver of the Silver Beatles", which was too similar to 'Johnny and the Moondogs'. After a tour with Johnny Gentle in Scotland, they changed their name to the 'Beatles'. Lennon, who was well known for giving multiple versions of the same story, joked in a 1961 Mersey Beat magazine article that "It came in a vision — a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, 'From this day on you are Beatles with an A'". During an interview in 2001, Paul McCartney took credit for the peculiar spelling of the name, saying that "John had the idea of calling us the Beetles, I said, 'how about the Beatles; you know, like the beat of the drum?' At the time, everyone was stoned enough to find it hilarious. It's funny how history is made."
In May 1960, the Silver Beetles toured northeast Scotland as a back-up band with singer Johnny Gentle.[16] They met Gentle an hour before their first gig, and McCartney referred to the tour as a great experience for the band.[17] For the tour the often drummerless group secured the services of Tommy Moore, who was considerably older than the others.[18] Moore left the band soon after the tour and went back to work in a bottling factory as a forklift truck driver. Norman Chapman was the band's next drummer, but was called up for National Service a few weeks later. His departure posed a serious problem as the group's unofficial manager, Allan Williams, had arranged for them to perform in clubs on the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, Germany.
Record contract
After failing to impress Decca Records, Epstein went to the HMV store on Oxford Street in London to transfer the Decca tapes to discs. There, recording engineer Jim Foy referred him to Sid Coleman, who ran EMI's publishing arm. When Coleman heard the demo tapes he suggested taking the tapes to George Martin, who headed the Parlophone label at EMI. Epstein eventually met with Martin, who signed the group to EMI on a one-year renewable contract and scheduled their first recording session on 6 June 1962 at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in north London. Martin had not been particularly impressed by the band's demo recordings, but he instantly liked them as people when he met them. He concluded that they had raw musical talent, but said (in later interviews) that what made the difference for him was their wit and humour.
Martin had a problem with Pete Best, whom he criticised for not being able to keep time. He privately suggested to Epstein that the band use another drummer in the studio. In addition, Epstein had become exasperated with his refusal to adopt the distinctive hairstyle as part of their unified look. Best also had missed a number of engagements because of illness. The three founding members enlisted Epstein to dismiss Best, which he did on 16 August 1962. They asked Ringo Starr (born Richard Starkey), the drummer for one of the top Merseybeat groups, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, to join the band; Starr had performed occasionally with The Beatles in Hamburg. The first recordings of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr together were made as early as 15 October 1960, in a series of demonstration records privately recorded in Hamburg while acting as the backing group for singer Lu Walters. Starr played on The Beatles' second EMI recording session on 4 September 1962, but Martin hired session drummer Andy White for their next session on 11 September.
The Beatles' first EMI session on 6 June 1962 did not yield any recordings considered worthy of release, but the September sessions a few months later produced a minor UK hit, "Love Me Do", which peaked on the charts at number 17. ("Love Me Do" reached the top of the U.S. singles chart over 18 months later in May 1964.) On 26 November 1962, they recorded their second single "Please Please Me", which reached number two on the official UK charts and number one on the NME chart. Three months later, they recorded their first album (also titled Please Please Me). The band's first televised performance was on the People and Places programme, transmitted live from Manchester by Granada Television on 17 October 1962. As The Beatles' fame spread, the frenzied idolation of the group, predominantly from teenage female fans, was dubbed Beatlemania.
The band also began to be noticed by serious music critics. On 23 December 1963, The Times music critic William Mann published an essay extolling The Beatles' compositions—their "fresh and euphonious" guitars in "Till There Was You", their "submediant switches from C major into A flat major", and the "octave ascent" in "I Want to Hold Your Hand", for example. The Beatles themselves were perplexed by this analysis by Mann: "...one gets the impression that they think simultaneously of harmony and melody, so firmly are the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes, and the flat-submediant key-switches, so natural is the Aeolian cadence at the end of 'Not a Second Time' (the chord progression which ends Mahler's 'Song of the Earth')." In 1980, Lennon commented, "To this day I don't have any idea what [Aeolian cadences] are. They sound like exotic birds."
Albums
The Beatles are the best-selling musical group of all time, estimated by EMI to have over one billion discs and tapes sold worldwide.
The Beatles have notched up the most multi-platinum selling albums for any artist or musical group (thirteen in the U.S. alone).
The Beatles have a record six diamond-selling albums (10 million copies): Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles, Abbey Road, The Beatles: 1962-1966, The Beatles: 1967-1970, and The Beatles 1.
The Beatles have had more number one albums than any other group (19 in the U.S. and 15 in the United Kingdom).
The Beatles spent the highest number of weeks at number one in the albums chart (174 in the UK and 132 in the U.S.).
The most successful first week of sales for a double album (The Beatles Anthology Volume 1, which sold 855,473 copies in the U.S. from 21 November to 28 November 1995).
The Beatles have the fastest selling CD of all time with 1. It sold over 13 million copies in four weeks.
Performances
With their performance at Shea Stadium in 1965, The Beatles set new world records for concert attendance (55,600) and revenue. This was the first time in the history of popular music anyone had played in a proper stadium as opposed to a theatre or concert hall.
The Beatles broke television ratings records in the U.S. with their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show with over 70 million people viewing. Crime reportedly fell by a third during the duration of the transmission, although this eventually turned out to be false.
On 30 June 1966, the Beatles became the first musical group to perform at the Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo. They performed five times in three days gathering audiences of about 10,000 per performance.
